Toronto’s , which proposes a 10-year road map for the local arts industry, doesn’t mince words when describing the current state of the sector: “Culture in Toronto is in a state of crisis,” it says at the top of . It’s a crisis that was fomented under a perfect storm. First came the COVID-19 pandemic, which shuttered arts organizations across the city, leaving companies that relied on a steady stream of in-person audiences in a tailspin.
As the sector slowly reopened, these same organizations were then met with inflationary pressures and a cost-of-living crisis that led to . At the same time, arts funding across all levels of government has remained stagnant, while other sources of revenue from private and corporate donors have largely evaporated. The numbers are striking.
During the pandemic, roughly . All were licensed clubs or small venues with an audience capacity of under 300. Most of these closures never made the news.
But this quiet toll has extended to other parts of the cultural sector, too: shuttering performance venues, artist studios and rehearsal venues throughout the city, rendering the industry a shell of its former self. The city’s ambitious new action plan, which replaces a previous iteration from 2011, aims to reverse those trends. Among its key priorities is a multimillion-dollar proposal to boost funding to the Toronto Arts Council, the city’s primary cultural grants body.
If passed, it would represent a generational increase to the organizat.